


Transport

by Guede



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: El Clásico, Humor, Inspired by The Twilight Zone, M/M, Mystery, Rivalry, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 10:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19424110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: David Villa is the worst TV host ever.  That’s normal.  Everything else isn’t.In homage to that show about the liminal time and space between day and night, where strange things occur.  And a mildThe Usual Suspectsriff.





	Transport

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LJ in 2012.

“So…sometimes weird things happen,” David said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, one arm bent awkwardly back and moving up and down so the elbow left a groove in the back. “Because they…I don’t know, life is like that. You never know what’s up, and shit happens, and whatever, I guess you just try to figure it out and all that.”

Then David looked over his shoulder. He cocked his head, shook it, and then turned his head so he was looking stolidly forward. His arm kept moving till finally he yanked it up over the back of his seat. He kept the clearly strained pose for a moment, then pulled his arm down with an irritated grunt.

“I think it’s just too high for you to do that,” Silva said, eyeing David. “But there is an arm-rest.”

“Whatever.” David slouched in his seat. He stared for a bit, then began to wriggle around again, only to stop when he saw Silva’s expression. “What?”

For a moment Silva looked as if he genuinely, with deeply nuanced analytical detail, wanted to answer that. Then he glanced down and considered the giant bucket of popcorn taking up most of his lap. He shrugged and popped a few kernels into his mouth. “That’s not really an intro, Guaje.”

“Well, what am I supposed to say? Doesn’t that cover it all?” David said, his voice rising. He tried to flop his arm over the seat back again, only to bang the side of his head. “Goddamn it, I’m not the kind of guy who does this kind of thing, okay? I don’t know what to say. I just said what I know, all right? Weird shit happens.”

“Yeah, I know.” The patience of a thousand downtrodden helpmates permeated Silva’s tone. He rubbed at his face, then took a deep breath, tossed back another helping of popcorn, and determinedly set his shoulders. “Journeys by definition are supposed to have a beginning and an end,” he said, slow and careful, giving each word weight. “We get up and we leave, and eventually we arrive. Except sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. There’s still a beginning but the road can stretch on and on, and the end is never…quite in sight. When you’re in the—”

David blinked a few times, then pushed himself grumpily down in his chair. “If somebody had just given me that on paper, I could’ve read it.”

“Jesus, Guaje, just shut up and let me start the movie, okay? Have some popcorn or something.”

* * *

It was quiet on the bus. Occasionally somebody would mess with their arm-rest, or there’d be a ring-tone brutalizing the silence, but it wouldn’t be long before the hunched-shoulder, apology-muttering offender quickly muffled up the noise. Not that the dirty looks were flying around too much—everyone was sunk too deep in his thoughts to really have the attention to spare for that. It’d been that kind of match.

Iker slumped further in his seat and pushed his phone back into his pocket. He ached all over, inside and out, but especially in that spot between his shoulders where the muscles knitted together, and the part of his throat that did the yelling and up in his head where he couldn’t help going over things even though he knew it’d be better to stop. Healthier. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been through rough patches before, but it just seemed to take longer these days for him to talk himself into moving on.

At least, he thought as he looked out into the night, they were just about ready to go home. In the morning he’d have the papers and the people in his face, and he’d have to get up and remind them that he did damn well believe in this club, but right now he needed some time out. He wanted to hit his bed and turn off his brain for a few hours.

Nearly all his teammates agreed with him, from the collective sigh that went up as the bus slowly pulled up. The floor under Iker’s feet trembled a little, then settled. It was quiet a moment longer before people started to move.

There was a little chit-chat. Even on the kind of bus that Real would spring for—would demand as fitting—space was in short supply and you had to wait your turn for your bag. Maybe you’d try and follow up on some conversation from before the game, about something harmless. Maybe you were the captain and had to at least try to buck up the spirit, even if you didn’t want to talk about the damn match either and your teammates looked like they’d rather drink acid. So Iker was preoccupied, anyway.

Then he got off the bus, and as his foot hit the pavement, he could feel it almost as a _click_ , the way his mind was shifting into rest mode. His bed, the sheets, the comfortable warmth of a pillow under his head, the—“Fuck!”

Iker stumbled back and put his hand to his face. His nose was fine, just on the sore side…and he glared at the head responsible for that. It turned around and Sergio looked blankly at him.

“The fuck, man,” Iker said. “I just walked into you.”

“Huh?” Sergio stared at him. The man shook his head, blinked hard and abruptly looked over his shoulder. Then he looked back at Iker. “What happened?”

“You stopped walking. You’re in front of me. I ran into you.” Goddamn idiot, Iker almost added, and felt less happy with himself than usual about not giving in to his nastier instincts. Sometimes he did think he’d trade a bit of Sergio’s fearlessness for some sense. “Just watch where you’re going, would you?”

“Yeah, but we’re back,” Sergio said. He sounded odd, like maybe he’d taken a hard hit to the skull that he hadn’t told anybody about, and God knew that wasn’t too different from normal him…Iker had to cut off his inner asshole again. Sergio had upped the intensity of his stare and was starting to look really upset. “We’re _back_. I mean—look, tell me I’m not crazy. We just fucking were here.”

Iker shook his head and just went around Sergio. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking ab— _fuck_.”

“See?” Sergio hissed wildly. “See what I mean?”

Dimly, Iker began to realize that everybody else had started to flip out too. Mesut was butchering his Spanish and getting sort of hysterical about it, Cristiano was flapping his arms around and talking about how this was the shittiest joke ever and—Iker pivoted on his heel. He marched back up the bus stairs to give their asshole driver a piece of his mind before Real kicked his ass out of Spain.

The driver wasn’t there. Iker stared at the empty seat for a few seconds, then hit himself on the side of the head when he realized the obvious. God, he was tired.

He went back out of the bus and began pushing through the loud, confused mass of teammates and staff, looking for the bastard. Once he got to one end of the group, he let out a couple choice swears and kicked a back tire before turning around and pushing his way back into the group. If that son of a bitch thought he was getting away with—Iker pulled at his elbow, then whirled around. “What?”

Xabi didn’t even register the snarl. “I don’t think he’s here.”

“What?” Iker said again, slightly more confused.

“I didn’t see him go out, and he’s not in there, right? And we would’ve seen somebody run off.” Xabi gestured at the broad parking lot around them, with its lack of obstructions. And there was something else…Xabi nodded as Iker got it. “Why aren’t there cars here? It hasn’t been that long. Not everyone could’ve gone home already.”

Iker began to reply, then stopped himself. He pulled his arm out of Xabi’s grip, which was petty and stupid and completely unrelated to the real, serious, increasingly disturbing problem here, but…he was too tired for this. They were all worked up anyway and it was probably just—it’d probably make sense if it had been the aftermath of any other match. Fuck it. “Look, back on the bus.” He waited, then turned around. “Get back on! Back on! We’ll just—somebody else drive. Get us the fuck home.”

The yelling and milling around kept going in a half-hearted way, but most of them were looking at Iker. Nobody else was coming up with anything, and Iker just kept staring them down.

Eventually one person shuffled towards the bus steps. That broke the ice, and in short order they were all back on the bus, with one of the staff driving. The doors closed and they pulled away from the stadium.

* * *

“So Iker’s being a hardass,” David said. “How is this scary? He’s always like that.”

Silva looked into his bucket, then over at David. Then he reached in, grabbed a handful of kernels, and jammed them into David’s mouth when the other man tried to ask him what he was looking at. While David sputtered and choked, Silva wiped off his hand and then produced a small bottle of hot sauce, which he proceeded to liberally douse all over the remaining popcorn.

“Unfortunately for Iker Casillas, he had only taken the first few steps into that strange world in between reality and fiction,” Silva said in a deadpan voice.

“Pretty sure he goes there every time I score on him,” David mumbled, flicking popcorn bits from his mouth.

Silva sighed and kicked the nearest shin. Then crammed more popcorn into David’s mouth, making sure he got the ones with lots of hot sauce on them. And that the soda was on his side of the seats.

* * *

“It didn’t work,” somebody whispered hollowly.

Iker started to look over his shoulder to see who it was, then gave himself a shake. He carefully didn’t look out the windows as he stormed up the aisle to the driver’s seat. Sure, his skin was crawling, but panicking wasn’t going to help anybody. And there still was a pretty good chance that this was all a really, really shitty joke—

After a couple seconds, Iker gradually became aware of Cristiano standing next to him. He glanced at the other man, who had his lips tightly pressed together but who seemed to be keeping his head. For all the hell Cristiano got for his personality, he still wasn’t a bad type to have around when things were going…wherever they were going. Fuck.

“Well, we can’t just all try driving,” Cristiano finally muttered, staring at the empty space behind the steering wheel.

“I was watching, too. We did get out of the parking lot.” Iker pulled at his shoulder, then grimaced as the muscles in his back twinged. And then he pulled at his shoulder again. It wasn’t good for him but he needed something to take off the…to keep occupied the part of his mind that otherwise would be running around screaming by now. “Fine. We can’t leave. There has to be a reason.”

Cristiano arched his brows and Iker almost snapped at him before he realized Cristiano was just thinking. The other man folded his hands together and tapped his fingers against his mouth a few times. Then he put them down on his hips. He looked back at the rest of the bus, which had gone quiet, and then sighed and tweaked his hair. “Do you want to say it or am I going to?”

“I’ll say it,” Iker said irritably. Not being hysterical was nice, but Cristiano could knock off acting as if he owned the…later. Iker turned around and prepared himself to deliver the bad news. “Guys…I think we’ve got to play it again.”

* * *

“Still not scary,” David grumped. “I thought you said this was a horror show. Aren’t we going to get vampires or ghosts or something?”

Silva poked his nose deep into the popcorn bucket, looking for a nice clump of kernels. “See, this is why we stopped inviting you to movie night at Valencia.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing,” Silva said, looking up innocently. Then he pointed to the screen. “Hey, look! They’re going inside!”

* * *

Exasperated, Iker booted open the dressing-room door with his foot and then blocked it that way with his shoulder as he shot Sergio a dirty look. “Do you think I want to do this again? We’re doing it next fucking week! No, okay. No, I just want to get home like everybody else, but obviously something isn’t going to let us go yet.”

“And doesn’t that freak you out?” Sergio hissed. “I’m fine with playing. It’s what we do. But doing it because—”

Xabi appeared behind Sergio. He put a hand on Sergio’s shoulder, waited for the man to jump and then politely, irresistibly requested a moment of Iker’s time in that way of his where people listened to him not because something awful would happen if they didn’t—not Xabi’s style—but where they just kind of did. It was amazingly irritating for Iker to watch sometimes. The man had been in Liverpool for years; what the hell did he know about Real?

Anyway, Sergio moved over, and Xabi turned his somber gaze on Iker. “I don’t think we should go in there.”

“Look, if you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears,” Iker snapped. “But we already tried driving out and that just meant we lost—”

“No, no, I think you’re right about this being about the match,” Xabi said patiently. He put up his hand as if he was going to take Iker by the shoulder too, but at the last moment he changed his mind. Instead he pointed into the room. “But I don’t think this is the right place for us to go.”

Iker couldn’t help a frustrated exhale. “Well, _then_ where? If you think I’m getting back on that bus without some kind of idea that it’ll go somewhere, without making people disappear, then you’ve—”

“Oh, shit, that happened to you too?”

After a moment, Iker turned around. The entire Barcelona first team stared back at him. Xavi was in front, and while Iker was taking it all in, the other man came up and peered past Iker into the hall. When he saw the rest of Iker’s teammates, he started cursing like somebody had hidden all of Guardiola’s water bottles.

“I just think we should use the other dressing room, that’s all,” Xabi finished.

“I—yeah. Right. So…” Iker started towards his team, then stopped and looked at Xavi. “I…guess we’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” Xavi said unhappily. Then he reached out and tapped Iker on the arm. “This is bullshit, man. I’m sorry.”

Iker managed a weak smile. “Not your fault. Anyway…hope it’s a good match.”

“Good luck with that pack of bastards,” somebody said.

Xavi glared into the room, while Iker glared into the hall, but it was impossible to tell who had said that, and nobody was coming forward. God, Iker was so fucking done already with this.

“All right,” Iker said, clapping his hands as he walked back down the hall. “Let’s go play, boys.”

* * *

“Oh, my God,” David moaned, dropping his head back onto the seat. “Does this mean we’ve got to watch it again too? It was a fucking awful game the first time! And we’re the audience. _We’re_ not supposed to suffer.”

“Uh-huh.” Then Silva winced and looked furtively over, but David was too busy complaining to notice the mobile Silva had hidden in his lap. Silva watched him for a couple more seconds, then went back to slinging birds at pigs.

* * *

They drabbled down the tunnel in twos and threes. It’d been a weird game. Nobody had really had much heart in it, even Iker. But they’d all acted as if they did—and it was easy to see that. Over-powered lunges, hasty passes, desperate shouts and calls to teammates, everyone had been jumpy as hell, and when they’d already been worn out from actually playing a real match and not just some bizarre ghost one to satisfy whoever was fucking up the laws of the universe.

The funny thing was, Iker thought, he hadn’t been able to dial it down once he’d realized what was going on. What they’d just done counted less than an exhibition, but it was like the moment he got out there, some switch got flipped that he couldn’t control.

“Man, I feel like shit.” Xavi wandered up next to Iker, when they were both a few meters short of their respective dressing rooms. He scratched at the back of his head, then tried to stretch out his arms. “So…think it worked?”

“If it didn’t, I’m going to beat the shit out of something,” Iker muttered, taking off his gloves. One still had a bit of grass stuck to it and he slapped it against his thigh to get that off.

The end of a finger caught briefly on something, then came loose. They turned around to find a slightly nervy-looking Valdés sneaking up on them. Valdés twitched hard, then made a visible effort to settle himself. “Didn’t you notice there was nobody sitting in the stands?” he said in a hissing whisper. “How the fuck is that normal?”

After a moment, Xavi and Iker looked at each other. Xavi blinked and Iker raised his brow. Then Xavi swore. Iker just stuffed his gloves in his waistband so he could grind his hands into his temples.

“You didn’t notice?” Valdés said.

“I was a _little_ busy,” Iker muttered.

Valdés started up like he was about to get righteous over Iker’s lack of attention—and then suddenly dropped back. “Oh, yeah, you were. Well, I had some time to look around.”

“Oh, fucking mother of God,” Xavi cut in, right before Iker would’ve whacked his gloves into Valdés’ face. He wasn’t an unapologetic asshole like a lot of people who’d never come close to earning the right to be, but he was honest about victories. He loved them and it was odd for him to turn down the chance to be thrilled about it. “Right _now_? Okay, right now, not the time. This is fucked-up and I just, really, not now.”

“I…” For someone as tall and muscled as Valdés was, he could pull down on himself an amazing amount. He bit his lip and stared at Xavi for a few seconds, then dropped his head so he could pretend to fiddle with his gloves. “Shit. Uh…”

“I just, you know, if this is some fucking thing trying to tell us something, like some shit has gotten out of hand, and I’m kind of thinking it is because yeah, now that I think about it, we just had to play a whole other match with no fans…” Xavi was going on. Wringing his hands and not really looking at Valdés, and Iker belatedly recognized that they were entering rant-mode. Which happened with Xavi about as often as Real had good press out of Barcelona, but when it did…Iker started looking for escape routes. “Not you, Iker, okay, even though sometimes I think Mourinho got abducted by aliens because come the fuck _on_ , he is not the fucking guy I used to know, and it’s not like we don’t have videos and evidence and shit, we’re just too nice to use it but I swear to God, I _will_ bring up the karaoke…”

Valdés had stammered a couple more syllables, including something that could’ve been the start of an apology, but then he seemed to get the picture. At least, he got that Xavi really wasn’t engaging at the moment; judging from the way he was shifting his feet and his eyes, he didn’t quite get that Xavi was going nuclear. Probably Iniesta always got him out of the way first.

Iniesta wasn’t around, and Iker reluctantly concluded that, as far beyond the usual Clásico madness that he was right now, he was still a reasonably compassionate human being. And while he liked De Gea, he wasn’t ready to have two damn back-up keepers blathering on about English weather at internationals.

* * *

“This is such bullshit!” David said, bolting upright. His arm knocked into Silva’s popcorn, sending the other man into a flurry of curses as he tried to keep it in his lap, but David didn’t even register the fuss. “It’s bullshit! It’s just another reason to get those two to—ow!”

“Shut up down there,” drawled an instantly-recognizable voice. “Some people here are trying to actually watch this.”

David forwent grabbing his kicked head to twist around and attempt murder by sneer. “Yeah, you _would_.”

Better men had tried and failed to instill a sense of shame in Luís Figo. “I _am_ ,” he corrected, and leaned over to knock some popcorn from his bucket into Silva’s. “Now shut it.”

“Sorry, man,” Silva said a moment later, with his man-purse wedged firmly in front of David’s mouth. “Hate to be a traitor and all, but you don’t feed me.”

* * *

“It’s okay,” Iker said. “He’s fucking wrung out already. He’ll run out of steam in a couple minutes and sit down and have some water, and in the meantime, Puyi can make sure he doesn’t break anything. We’re safer out here.”

Valdés seemed unconvinced. Or he wasn’t listening; the heavy brows made pretty much all of his non-smiling expressions look cranky. But the not-listening option got more likely when Valdés abruptly pushed out of the doorway and crossed the lot to the closer of the two buses parked by them. Which was the Real bus, so Iker followed along just in case Valdés got some fucking idea about sabotage or whatever.

“So your driver just vanished too?” he asked, staring down at the empty seat. His left arm swung up to cradle his front, then jerked down so he could push his knuckles into his hip. “Do you think they’re okay?”

“I don’t know.” That creeping, cold, dizzy feeling, like Iker was teetering on the edge of something bad, came on all of a sudden and Iker had to—he kicked at the floor to snap himself out of it, then cursed as that knocked him off-balance. He grabbed for the dash, missed and fell heavily into the railing.

Valdés stuck out a hand to get him back on his feet, then plopped himself down in the nearest passenger seat. After a moment, Iker went for the seat on the other side of the aisle. He didn’t have anything useful to say and he didn’t want to go back inside yet. Again. Such fucking bullshit.

“You think he’s right?” A grimace crossed Valdés’ face. Then he pushed his head down and raised his arm so the elbow was almost higher, scratching at his scalp. After a couple gos, pink lines started to become visible on his skin. “About the whole…I mean, if we’re stuck here, playing over and over again because…we’re being punished…”

“Then it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, because I don’t see a hell of a lot of other people who should be here for it too,” Iker said. He watched Valdés try to peel skin for another second, then sighed and grabbed the man’s arm. “Okay… _maybe_. Maybe it’s that. But what the hell do they expect us to do instead? Not play?”

At first Valdés was busy pulling at his arm, but then he abruptly stopped. He looked up at Iker, thinking long and hard and seriously about something. To the point that it actually sort of made Iker’s head hurt in sympathy, watching the other man mull whatever it was over. And then Valdés basically bundled himself across the aisle and planted a damn kiss on Iker’s mouth.

Not a bad one, actually, and then Iker realized he was flat on his back on the seat, and Valdés was already in his goddamn shorts, and…right, well, maybe. Couldn’t hurt, anyway.

* * *

“So easy,” Figo sighed contentedly. “That’s what I really loved about Spain.”

“And you owe me another bag,” Silva grumbled at David. “Can’t even sell this one on eBay with teeth marks like that.” 

Figo crunched some popcorn. “Don’t underestimate the power of fans. Or fetishes. Or both together.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Okay, we’re still good.”

“I don’t want to be here,” David said under his breath.

* * *

Xavi brightened up as they walked in. “There you are!” Then his face fell. “Shit, man, I am really, really sorry about that. I just got upset and…and…” His face didn’t exactly perk up again, but it did look a lot more bemused. “Oh, my God. Iker, seriously? Now?”

“Why do you assume it was me?” Iker finally managed. “I didn’t start—”

“I always kind of figured it’d be Cristiano,” Iniesta said quietly. Then he blushed and patted Valdés on the arm. “Not that you’d ever go for him, but just that he’d be the one to, y’know, if anyone was going to do that.”

Valdés appeared to be choking on several reactions at once. Xabi helped him out with a thump on the back and he finally managed to straighten up with a semblance of dignity. “I was just thinking if we tried something besides fighting.”

“Well, did it work?” Xavi asked.

“I…don’t think so,” Iker said. He gestured vaguely around them. “Everything still looks like a ghost town. And that is really bizarre. I mean, why _just_ us? You’d think that at least the coaches—”

They all stared at each other.

* * *

Silva paused to slurp some soda, then looked over. “Well, you’re still here.”

“Because I want to know what the fucking ending is. I had to put up with so much shit already, I’d better find out,” David snapped.

“Oh, just admit that you know what’s coming and you’re looking forward to it,” Figo laughed. “We won’t judge.”

“Hey, speak for yourself,” Silva protested.

David looked out of the corner of his eyes at Silva, then huffed and folded his arms over his chest. “England’s turned you into a prick.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun as hell, so I don’t mind,” Silva said cheerfully. “By the way, you sure you don’t want any of the popcorn?” He looked with slightly overdone sincerity at David’s stormy expression. “Okay, well, I’ll just finish it up then.”

* * *

All Iker could say is that certain matches messed with his head a little, so it shouldn’t be that surprising that his memory wobbled a little. And it hadn’t just been him, after all. They’d all just sort of…forgotten about it. Them.

“Is something the matter?” Guardiola asked, blinking owlishly at them all. He had apparently not noticed that he’d been sitting in a totally empty press-room.

“It’s…well, here, do you mind just coming along while I explain?” Xabi said, polite and smooth and ridiculously good at hiding how weird it all was.

After another moment’s puzzled staring at the combined Real and Barcelona teams, Guardiola shrugged and stepped out of the press-room. He went with them, looking distractedly about while Xabi and Xavi took turns trying to not actually explain things, until they got to the other room. And then…

It was absolutely silent. Not regular silence, not just an absence of sound because there actually was something in the air. It wasn’t noise, though—it was this thick, heavy pressure, like something pushed down till it was about to snap under the weight. And like if they even breathed, it’d all just come tumbling down.

“Oh.” Guardiola blinked, a little chagrined at his forwardness, and then shifted awkwardly in the broken quiet. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, but finally he put them in his pockets and nodded. “José.”

Mourinho nodded curtly. He swiveled as if to walk away, but then his arm went out. His hand hung in the air, its fingers flexed tensely, as ready to slap as to grasp.

And then Guardiola put his hand out and took Mourinho’s hand, and they shook their hands and everyone cheered and—

“—shit, man, you look weird when you’re sleeping sometimes,” Sergio said, looking down at Iker. He reached out and tapped Iker’s cheek, then put his hand back on the headrest of the seat in front of them. “You awake now? We’re back.”

Iker nearly cracked his elbow on the window trying to see, and when he realized that Sergio didn’t mean back _there_ …Jesus, he was relieved. And Jesus, he needed to chill out. His line of work pretty much required some offbeat thinking but there was such a thing as too far out there.

“No, no, I’m good. Just…yeah,” Iker muttered, hearing Sergio repeat his question.

“Oh, great.” Sergio clapped him on the shoulder and then twisted back to return to his seat. “Thank fucking God, man, because there’s no way we can lose you. Not when we’ve got another damn derby lined up practically tomorrow.”

As the other man walked away, Iker dropped spinelessly back into his seat and willed himself to wake up. It had to end sometime, he thought desperately. It just _had_ to.

* * *

“Well, that was depressing as hell,” David said. He kicked aimlessly at the floor a few times, then looked over his shoulder. “You are one twisted fuck for enjoying that.”

Figo barely glanced at him, so busy was the other man glowering at the screen. “I didn’t. That was…all right, this is ridiculous. A handshake? That’s it? Back in my day, it would’ve been at _least_ a full-frontal hug. At least. And Pep would have been much more drunk—which isn’t terribly hard to do, by the way…”

“Oh, my God, oh, my God.” David forced himself down in his seat, driving his fingers into his ears as deep as he could make them go. “Oh, my God, I want a refund,” he moaned.

“And so a few unfortunate men are doomed to return to the same contesting place over and over again, trapped in a rivalry grown far beyond their ability to comprehend.” After a moment’s solemn stare, while Figo rambled on behind him to David’s increasingly vocal dismay, Silva tossed the last popcorn kernel into his mouth. 

Then he got out of his seat, picked up his trash, and dropped it off in the bin at the end of the aisle. Oblivious, the other two continued their argument.

“Yeah, I hate to do this to them,” Silva said, ambling out of the theater. “I mean, some of them are my friends. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I gotta go. ‘Night, all.”

And the doors swung quietly shut behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Valencia did have a regular team movie night while Silva and Villa were at the club.


End file.
